Remember that old "Star Trek" episode about the planet about to be burnt to toast by its dying sun? Our lads hustle thence to save the population, only to find that all have already saved themselves by going back in time to a place of their choosing. (All save one.)
Suppose that were your option today. Where would you go, what and who would you take with you, and how would you prepare? Why there and then?
It's an interesting proposition, isn't it?
At the metaphoric level, it makes me think of survivalists. At the level of imagination, it fascinates me. My first thought is Knossos, Crete, in its prime (of course). After all, they had flush toilets.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Flush Toilets
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3 comments:
First, let me say its great to have you back blogging. You were missed.
Now concerning your question. What time in the past would I want to go back to NONE. The only time that really interests me is the future (which I don't want to miss out on). I guess that "Star Trek" crew would have to save me, because I wouldn't choose to go back in time to any place or era (even a place with flush toilets).
Thank you, Ted. Pico and I missed you, too.
OK, so what if I said you can still go to the future. Where in the past would you go?
Knossos has always enchanted me. Been there and it's beautiful. Plus, I'd like to see the bull jumpers. Not to mention the minotaur. I like to imagine the cultural climate there, and the spiritual one. I'd prepare by losing weight and learning classical Greek.
Your turn.
Maybe I just have no romantic imagination, but I've considered several different times and places in the past. The problem is that I almost immediately start thinking about what I'd have to do without -- and the suspicious nonsense that I'd have to put up with. It's just not a very inviting idea to me. I'd still pass on any trip backwards.
But having said that, there are some historical figures I wouldn't mind meeting (on a very short trip to the past) -- like Socrates, Karl Marx, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Woody Guthrie, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Vincent Van Gogh, etc.
But while these people interest me, their time periods do not.
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